Close-in Portland is becoming a model of walkable neighborhoods, interconnected by good mass transit and bike paths. But travel a few miles beyond the urban core and sidewalks disappear, distances between destinations expand and mostly what we see are acres of asphalt parking lots and widening boulevards filled with cars. How can these communities, which are being designed around the automobile be transformed into walkable communities. Locus Focus host Barbara Bernstein talks with Wendy Rankin with the Multnomah County Public Health Department, Noelle Dobson, with Active Living By Design and Paul Parker with Save Cedar Mill about the challenges facing planners, politicians and the people who live to the west and east of Portland.

Our program begins with a short feature about the controversial Wal-Mart proposed to be built in Cedar Mill, produced by Whole Communities Radio Project intern Miriam Widman.